


Si leonina pellis non satis est, assunda vulpina

by Xiphos



Series: several ways to look at a fox [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, M/M, pregnant courier, unethical medical practices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 08:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12722949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xiphos/pseuds/Xiphos
Summary: After the death of Caesar, amid plans for the capture of Hoover Dam, Vulpes Inculta makes his own plans for the future of the Legion.These plans must work around Lanius, and the courier, current right-hand-woman for Mr. House, but growing more concerned that a free Vegas may require... changes to be made.





	1. Prologue

Caesar was dead.

This was reality, yet somehow it settled heavy over Vulpes Inculta, like a cloak soaked too heavy with raindrops, or with kerosene. He was not a man who bewailed the reality of the world. It was his duty to see with clear eyes the monstrosity, the degeneration, that stretched its gaping, chancred maw over the Mojave, and to determine what could be done to... lance its festering wounds.

It was his duty to become what he needed to become, when triumph surged behind him or the earth crumbled beneath his feet. Yet Vulpes Inculta had never expected to exist in this moment, to have the cornerstone of his existence ripped from him. To have a god among men, the greatest who had ever lived, the recipient of his unflinching, to-the-death loyalty... transformed to a cold wax figure, lain still on a bed.

Women wailed throughout the camp.

It was due to Caesar, this grieving, or else the way it tore at Vulpes' skull, ached at the meat of him, would make his fingers twitch toward commanding crosses for the lot of them. His own eyes burned, but there were no tears in him. He'd teetered there, on the edge of it. He'd almost touched Caesar's skin, almost gazed into sightless eyes, and he had remembered the rich, deep voice, the brilliance of the man's plans, the echoes of a thousand improvements to come. He could have wept for that, and held it no shame, though he would not have caterwauled like those fools out in the dark among the bonfires.

He certainly would not do the rest of... _whatever they did_.

He could have wept, but of a sudden, a white hot fury gripped him instead. It grabbed him by the stomach, clenched like iron, shook him in its grasp. He was breathless and astounded and horrified at how angry he actually was, at how this man, his Lord, Caesar, had been stolen from him. Stolen from them all.

Had he a target, in that moment, Vulpes Inculta could not have told what he might do to it. But sickness of the brain wasn't something that could be killed, not posthumously, and the pathetic little healer called in far too late was already mere blood-stains on the tent floor, courtesy of Praetorian machetes.

Vulpes pressed his hand to his heart in one last wordless accolade, then turned and exited the tent. He was one of the last there and one of the few allowed to stay and view Caesar as long as he wished.

Outside the tent, darkness spread, dotted with brilliant tongues of flame, torches and bonfires, so that vision drifted in and out, with the figures of men in Legion armor and smaller scuttling shapes- slaves- trying to serve their pleasure on a terrible night. The air smelled of smoke and charred meat, of blood and the ugly scent of revelry. It did not smell, that night, like a Legion camp, but like some profligate celebration, and it disgusted him.

The men deserved to grieve their great leader, the engineer of all they were or ever would be. But Vulpes Inculta hated the shape of their grief. It hinted at further mangling of their spirit to come.

... When Legatus Lanius was Caesar. The thought was sour in his mouth, a nail twisted in his flesh. Lanius was brave and skilled, and Vulpes admired him in battle. He did not, however, think Lanius fit to rule, to lead an entire nation. Nor did he think Lanius was loyal to the Legion, to the Bull, at all. No, the crimson to which Lanius owed fealty was that of arterial spray, his words of honor a hollow attempt to hide his unquenchable blood lust.

That he despised Vulpes Inculta was incidental. The frumentarius' life was bound to the Legion, and he would die for it without a second thought. But he would not die for a shadow of the Legion, for a twisted replica, and he would not die while leaving his brothers, whose loyalty and honor were his own, to whatever passed for Lanius' Legion.

_Well,_ he thought, passing a guttering torch and one man pounding another into the sand. He noted the shapes of their faces, their injuries, for discipline the next day. Internecine squabbles were not permitted, particularly when injury was likely and... he sneered... alcohol might be involved.

_Well._ He would give Lanius- the new Caesar- all the support he had in him to give. And when, not if, _when_ \-- Lanius threw it back in his face, Vulpes Inculta would be ready.

Lanius was obsessed with Hoover Dam, with proving himself the superior to the Malpais Legate, and even with Caesar... gone... he was unlikely to shake his aims. So distracted, he wouldn't notice as Vulpes arranged to give the Legion the stable Vegas kingdom, the bright and undaunted future, that Vulpes' Caesar, the _true_ Caesar, had planned.


	2. Draw Three Cards: One-eyed Jack, King of Spades, Ace of Diamonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We introduce my OMC, Jekyll Hyde, a very disreputable New Vegas surgeon...
> 
> ... Lanius as Caesar...
> 
> ... and our courier, Rebekah Clare, a beautiful and utterly jaded former thief trying to be better, a POC, six months pregnant. Yeah. That happened.

"What- you can't- I can't-" the kid backpedaled frantically after hearing the price for the operation he had insisted he'd do anything to receive. His eyes were wide with panic, his heartbeat rocketing (not safe, after the sort of invasive surgery he'd only a few days ago recovered from.

Jekyll raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. There were a lot of people like this in the Mojave, just as there had been a lot of people like this in the Commonwealth. Idiots who thought the world owed them something, who effusively promised 'anything at all' when they wanted something, then got cold feet the moment they were asked to provide a payment that was a teeny bit difficult... or morally questionable.

"You agreed to provide a favor of my specification, with no stipulations to its content," he cut in coldly. Jekyll had a faint Boston twang that still lingered on the edges of his speech, at odds with the put-on accents or natural drawls of this part of the world. He watched the boy blink glassily through the multi-syllable words.

"But I-- I can't-"

Jekyll stood, suddenly, towering over the kid. He was a doctor, and not the deadliest warrior in the wastes, but he was big and broad-shouldered and had a decent amount of muscle underneath his fine suits or his medical scrubs. He also had yellow eyes, which he knew many found intimidating, particularly when they stared down with an absolute lack of sympathy, the scar that crossed the right side of his face stark in the very good, very industrial, lighting.

"Whining," he said, biting off every syllable, "is _not_ going to help you. You made a contract. You'll do as I asked you to do, or maybe I'll take back what I did for you. Hm? Maybe that fresh, clean, working kidney can be... compromised fairly easily, by a man of my skills."

The boy opened his mouth once, twice, gaped at Jekyll Hyde like a fish drowning, flopping about on land.

Jekyll smiled. He knew it wasn't a pleasant expression, and he knew it didn't help when he trailed his fingertips down the side of the kid's face. But he liked watching the pupils contract, watching the adam's-apple bob in confusion and terror. Watched the kid make his final, irrevocable decision, whether it meant Jekyll would kill him there, and have to scrub his blood off the floorboards, or whether it meant Jekyll would get his way.

It almost didn't matter which way the coin flipped. Either way, it was entertainment.

+

The former Legatus Lanius took the laurel early morning. The sky was still a dull color, like the metal from older guns. A mist clung to the river that stretched between the Fort and Cottonwood Cove, and shrouded the cove in dull blue, far beneath the cliffs. The pale light made everything harsh, the shadows deep, from the tents risen stark at the top of the rise, the shape of the Coliseum below, the silhouettes of the ranking Legionaries who stood at arms in witness.

There was no precedent for such a crowning. Vulpes Inculta had wondered if Lanius would bow, or even kneel, but had expected neither show of respect for what he received. Instead, Lucius held a ceremonial circlet, a symbol, out with two hands, and the massive former Legate took it with both hands and placed it atop the horns of his masked helmet.

Then he turned and swept a hollow gaze, eyes so deep they could not be seen, across the gathered troops.

"We will take the Dam," he said, in his deep, hard voice. "We will eradicate the NCR. And we will conquer Vegas, and crush it underfoot."

There rose a cheer, at once ragged and exultant. Lanius stared at what were now his people, a stern stare impossible to decipher, and swept into the command tent. To take his place in Caesar's house.

Vulpes Inculta carefully loosened his jaw so that he did not grind his teeth.

+

Nobody, not her mama, not _nobody_ , had warned Rebekah Clare that being pregnant wouldn't just make her belly swell up. Her feet were two damn balloons, and they were tender when she tried to walk on them, mostly because shoving them into her worn boots rubbed at them, bruised and blistered.

Unfortunately, there was no rest for the wicked, ever, in this world, and she'd spent the day in the moderately clean business suit that Boone of all people had let out and mended so it fit over her huge baby bump. Babies bump. And she'd talked to the Chairmen, at length, and the White Glove Society- even after everything, most of them made her skin crawl.

Then she'd gone upstairs to report to House, and tried not to show her intense discomfort standing on her swollen feet in her beat up boots while he, characteristically, segued into soliluquoys that would put Prince Hamlet to shame. House was the reason that she knew about soliluquoys, and Hamlet. Her apartment was full of perfectly preserved, fascinating books. Rebekah appreciated that, but balancing on uncomfortable balloons was balancing on uncomfortable balloons.

She kept her expression blank, memorized the gist of what her boss wanted, and made her way back to the living level, where Boone instantly had a pillow underneath her back as she sank into the couch, Cass had her boots off, wincing and cursing at the effort, and Arcade already was mixing some sort of carbonade salts into cool water for her to soak her blisters in.

"God, I love my family," she said, beaming up at them, as she sank her toes tentatively into the cool water. Her feet felt impossibly hot, and the water impossibly good.

Cass grinned and kissed the top of her head. "We love you too, baby-doll."

"All this place needs is your goddamn husband to get off his high horse," Boone grumbled, from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. Jesus God, was he cooking? Rebekah craned her neck, but she sat too deep these days, especially with her feet in a pan, to quite manage the angle.

"Jesus, Boone," she said mildly.

"I mean it, Becky." His voice was a growly, gravelly promise that he absofuckinglutely meant it. "He needs to be here. He's going to have sons. Plural. Sons. He's just hanging out in the goddamn Utah because he's too good for you trying to make things better for the Mojave?"

Veronica smacked the table. "It doesn't really help her for you to point all that out," she said, her voice still chipper and even.

Becky nodded sleepily. "Raul? Can you make pancakes? The way you make them?" It was clunky, silly, and her tongue fumbled on it. God, she was tired.

"Si, princessa," the ghoul cowboy said simply, and she heard him move to the kitchen.

"Hey, you want some grilled gecko to go with? With that soy sauce?" Boone asked, tentatively.

"Sure, brother," she said, knowing he was at a loss, and lifted her dark-skinned hand to be grasped and clasped. She knew her pregnancy brought back bad dark memories, and it didn't bother her, like it bothered some of the others, how mad Boone was at Daniel for staying away.

She was kinda mad too, but at herself as much as at him.

His hand was warm and the butter smelled amazing on the hot iron skillet. Raul had started to hum.

"Cass? Whiskey blossom mimosas?"

"You are speaking my language, baby-doll."

"You're not drinking," Arcade spoke up, firmly.

Rebekah sighed, rubbed her belly. "No, but the rest of you can. I'll just gorge on pancakes."

He smirked faintly. "Just three more months. If the world doesn't blow up first."


End file.
